Jan 01, 2013

While Minnesota's U.S. Senators and the Democrats on the House Ag Committee argued throughout the summer and fall for the need to pass a new Farm Bill,many of Bluestem's friends didn't pay much attention to their warnings.

That is, until they realized one consequence might be outrageously priced milk.

It's not them, Bluestem must admit. It's the complexity of a bill that deals with food, from farm to fork, that got mired in what Tea Party Republicans in the House of Representatives thought was a winning message about SNAP, or food stamps. While that narrative of "takers" didn't pan out in November, the GOP still controls the House, and the bill, approved by the Senate and the House Ag Committee, languished without coming to the floor.

The deal only prolongs the 2012 saga over farm programs. The Senate
and House Agriculture committee in 2012 both passed five-year bills to
replace the 2008 farm bill. While differences remained over how southern
crops were treated and how much food-stamp benefits were to be cut, a
compromise long appeared at hand. The deal guarantees that those
five-year bills are dead and lawmakers will have to start over again
once the new Congress convenes Thursday.

The deal simply extends the 2008 farm bill, which expired Sept. 30, for one year.

Efforts
to craft a new farm bill will in turn be affected by the
debt-ceiling-sequester-continuing-resolution-tax-reform mess that is
coming in late winter and spring.

Extending the old bill--without reforms either the Senate or House versions--is more expensive than passing those versions, but would have left less for House Republicans to bicker about.

House and Senate agriculture committee leaders said they backed a
different one-year extension of the 2008 farm bill. Representative
Collin Peterson of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture
Committee, said he would oppose the short- term dairy-only bill if it’s
brought to the floor, calling a one-month extension measure a “cruel
joke” on American farmers.

The Senate "fiscal cliff" bill may be no gift for farmers in the Upper Midwest either, if David Rogers' report in Politico is to be believed.

The giant New Year’s tax package rushed through the Senate Tuesday
morning includes a nine-month farm bill extension that forestalls ill, even some of Bluestem's best informed friends didn't start paying attention.any
immediate spike in milk prices but also represents a bitter blow for
farmers who had hoped for long-sought changes in the dairy support
program.

In the final hours, Senate Agriculture Committee
Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) found herself pushed aside in favor
of legislative language generated by the office of Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a bit player and frequent “no” vote when the
Senate adopted a more comprehensive five-year farm bill last June.

The upshot is a victory for Southern agricultural interests with the
greatest stake in a costly system of direct cash payments to often
already profitable producers. In the dairy arena, giant processors like
Dean Foods Co. come out ahead while the outcome is a major blow for the
National Milk Producers Federation, which watched with disbelief from
the sidelines on New Year’s Eve.

“The deal is blatantly anti-reform,” said Ferd Hoefner, policy direct
for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “Many smaller, targeted
programs to fund farm and food system reform and rural jobs…were left
out completely.”

“The message is unmistakable - direct commodity subsidies, despite
high market prices, are sacrosanct, while the rest of agriculture and
the rest of rural America can simply drop dead.”

The impact in the House is still unclear.

Coming into Tuesday, Republicans were scheduled to bring up their own
short-term solution to the milk crisis . . .

Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the top Democrat on the House
Agriculture Committee, had warned the White House that it must tread
carefully on the dairy and farm bills issues or risk a backlash. But at
this stage, given the size of the Senate vote, milk producers risk being
swept away with the tax cut surge.

Beyond dairy, the outcome is a wake-up call to the entire farm lobby
of its weakened political standing in Washington and need to avoid so
much infighting.

Update: The Politico story has been revised to include the reaction of Peterson to the passage of the bill, which he voted against:

“Upset is an understatement,” Peterson told POLITICO. “I’m not going
to talk with those guys. I’m done with them for the next four years.
They are on their own. They don’t give a sh-it. about me, anyway.”

“This is crazy, “ Peterson said of the tax package itself. “The farm
bill is one thing, but there’s just no way I’m going to add $4 trillion
to the deficit. … We’re not doing anything. We’re making it worse.”

In Minnesota, farm groups from across the production and political spectrum had urged the House to pass the 2012 Farm Bill (the Senate bill had already been approved) to no avail. However, a least one farm leader called for the passage of the nine-month extension so that farmers, processors and consumers would have some measure of certainty.

"With Congress at an impasse, a
nine-month extension may be the only path to a five-year farm bill in
the new Congress,” said Doug Peterson, MFU President. “An extension must
be responsible and protect baseline
funding and continue vital farm and consumer programs such as the Milk
Income Loss Contract Program (MILC), crop insurance, child and elderly
nutrition, and conservation.”

Since Minnesota has so far been spared the worst of the nation's drought, agriculture has remained a bright spot in the state's economy. In December, CBS Minnesota reported that Minnesota Agricultural Exports Hit Record $6.8B for 2011.

Photo: Farming in Minnesota.

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